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WP App: Infinite reload loop on Android
Closed, ResolvedPublicBUG REPORT

Description

Steps to replicate the issue (include links if applicable):

While using the Android app: during a browse session that includes some combination of following links, using the back button to return to other links, and searching for articles, at some point a page will start to constantly reload itself. Here's an example from today:

What happens?:

    • While on an article, search for "Main Page" in the search bar at top.
  • Select "Main Page" when it comes up as an autocompletion
  • Main Page loads
  • Before I can start scrolling, the page refreshes (it reminds me of the sorts of refresh one gets when visiting a wikipedia page in a browser, that gets rdirected to the app)
  • The page keeps refreshing, roughly once every 1-2 seconds.
  • Clicking on links in the page during its brief appearance doesn't stop the cycle, it always refreshes the Main Page
  • Closing the app and reopening it stops the odd behavior, and the Main Page loads once as expected.

Software version (skip for WMF-hosted wikis like Wikipedia):

Other information (browser name/version, screenshots, etc.):
Android. Default browser: Chrome.

Event Timeline

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald Transcript

@Sj I'm not able to reproduce this, under various different conditions.
Could you provide a bit more information about the state of the app on your device:

  • Are you sure you're using the very latest version of the app?
  • How many total tabs do you have open in the app?
  • What is the version of Android on your device?

Reproduced on Android:

  1. From any article, open the main menu (three dots in the upper-right)
  2. Select "New tab" (nb: I already have ~55 tabs)
  3. It creates a new tab, loading the "Welcome, Sj!" view, and seems to then rapidly load a browser-view of the Main Page, then reload the "Welcome, Sj!" view in the App, cycling continuously. (each page load sliding in from the right)
  4. If I'm fast sometimes I can click on a link on the page and it stops the cycle. Else I can back up by sliding left from the right edge of the screen, else I can sleep and restart the app : all end the cycle.

And: Android 14, confirmed in app versions from 2023-12-12 and 2024-01-22

@Sj Do you possibly have some kind of gadget(s) or other javascript in your common.js that might be causing such weird behavior?

Since we load the Main Page in a plain "mobile web" wrapper, which is different from loading other articles, it will load any gadgets you might have, which might cause unexpected behavior.

Aha, let's see: I have CiteHighlighter, CiteUnseen, MoveToDraft... and NeverUseMobileVersion 😅 That would do it.
I added that last year to work around a different problem, since fixed.

Thanks! I had to log out on mobile to make the change stick, which seemed to log me out everywhere on desktop as well. But this issue is resolved.

But: it would be nice if one didn't have to use mobile web to use the app. Since sometimes mobile web has issues that need workarounds, which might be why one is using the app in the first place.

In T353614#9503890, @Sj wrote:

But: it would be nice if one didn't have to use mobile web to use the app. Since sometimes mobile web has issues that need workarounds, which might be why one is using the app in the first place.

Totally agree. IIRC there were specific upstream issues (viz. Parsoid, theming (T276815), etc) that caused us to fall back to loading the Main Page in a special way.